Children killed in fire on Vancouver Island

As many as six children, all under the age of 12, are feared dead following a house fire in a remote community on northern Vancouver Island.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Sergeant Grant Learned said police were treating the fire in Quatsino as suspicious.

One woman who lived in the house is also believed to have died in the fire, and a man was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Quatsino is about 33 miles south of Port Hardy, the community on Vancouver Island’s northernmost tip. It is accessible only by air or boat. About 75 people live there.

Learned said arson and major crime investigators, including forensics experts, were dispatched to help in the investigation.